I think the degree to which people call tos a socialist utopia or socialist media (and therefore unimpeachably progressive) is wildly out of proportion to what is actually in the show, which is an anti-communist, american imperial prosperity fantasy of exploring an infinitely vast, infinitely ‘exotic’ frontier. tos depicts a post-scarcity, post-money society, and so the colonial logic of exploration* in the show shifts from pursuing material resources to epistemic ones, and space is an unlimited resource from which to extract, refine, and ultimately reassert Western intellectual supremacy, all of which is set against the context of the Cold War. The racism and misogyny are not antiquated bigotries mistakenly grafted onto an otherwise progressive utopia, they are a fundamental part of the narrative engine that drives tos forward.
*exploration itself is not colonial, but tos’ conception and depiction of it is indistinguishable from orientalist stories about western explorers finding barbaric, exotic, uncivilisable peoples who can be studied, observed, and used as examples to reassert the fundamental rationality of Western society. the fact that the enterprise does not (usually) steal or pillage material resources from the aliens they encounter does not make this relationship less colonial in its framing
ok so the omega glory episode in tos (written by gene rodenberry, the creator of star trek) is an alternate history style episode where the Enterprise discovers a planet like Earth where the communist “asiatics” (in the words of the show) took over the world instead of the americans, but instead of acting as a global civilising force over “non-civilised” people (as america is presented to have done in the show via a global democratic Earth government that the enterprise explores on behalf of), it turned americans into barbarians, converting them into pre-civil “native americans,” because a communist force, specifically a racialised eastern one, only has the capacity to degrade the lands and peoples it conquers, to destroy “enlightened” settlers so thoroughly they convert “back” to a savage indigenous race. tell me again how this show is socialist
I do, however, have no first-hand experience of watching any ST installments.
Yeah, read those first, or better, watch the show. I’d have to recall that specific episode, but a single star trek episode can’t undo several series each with hundreds of episodes of fully automated luxury gay space socialism. The op had not seen a single series, and was arguing by proxy.
The old show had some cringe moments and episodes, but it’s spirit was also anti-imperialist and socialist. It even had chekov, a russian character, at the height of the cold war. Could you imagine a show nowadays having a chinese or russian character that isn’t openly liberal.
Using the Original Series episodes for this examination is a bit unfair. That show was on a shoestring budget and they were making up the world building as they went along. Thr futuristic post scarcity utopia thing came more with TNG. In the time between TOS and TNG, Roddenberry wasn’t getting much TV work and did the convention circuit a lot where he was worshipped a bit too much and too often by fans and was also a beatnik sex guy who was drinking and doing pills a lot and started believing his own hype. Star Trek always presented a better future and something to strive towards but in TOS the society and economic model was shown to still be pretty similar to 1966 America (tos had currency, it gets mentioned often), but it the time between with Roddenberry’s ego getting pumped and him attending Q&A sessions where he’d just make shit up about the world building. By the time TNG came around he had all these half baked utopian ideas going around his drug addled brain and was given wayyyy too much creative control at the start of tng and took things too far in many places like arguing that a child wouldn’t morn his dead parents cause they were too enlightened for that now. After he died things got rolled back by about a third to a semi reasonable but poorly thought out utopia.
As a big retro Dungeons and Dragons fan, I’ve grown really tired over the years of the “Anything that even remotely resembles a ‘Colonial Trope’ is bad” arguments.
If anything, i’ve seen much more direct claims (not mine) that it’s anticommunist: https://communistkenobi.tumblr.com/post/737508042870079488/the-missing-context-from-this-post-is-that-any
https://communistkenobi.tumblr.com/post/737463878390366208/ok-so-the-omega-glory-episode-in-tos-written-by
I do, however, have no first-hand experience of watching any ST installments.
This is completely wrong, and you probably shouldn’t be answering if you haven’t watched a single trek show.
Can you explain further? Or do the articles you posted in your top level comment do so?
That specific TOS episode sounds pretty dire as described. So id like to know what the counterpoint is.
Yeah, read those first, or better, watch the show. I’d have to recall that specific episode, but a single star trek episode can’t undo several series each with hundreds of episodes of fully automated luxury gay space socialism. The op had not seen a single series, and was arguing by proxy.
The old show had some cringe moments and episodes, but it’s spirit was also anti-imperialist and socialist. It even had chekov, a russian character, at the height of the cold war. Could you imagine a show nowadays having a chinese or russian character that isn’t openly liberal.
Using the Original Series episodes for this examination is a bit unfair. That show was on a shoestring budget and they were making up the world building as they went along. Thr futuristic post scarcity utopia thing came more with TNG. In the time between TOS and TNG, Roddenberry wasn’t getting much TV work and did the convention circuit a lot where he was worshipped a bit too much and too often by fans and was also a beatnik sex guy who was drinking and doing pills a lot and started believing his own hype. Star Trek always presented a better future and something to strive towards but in TOS the society and economic model was shown to still be pretty similar to 1966 America (tos had currency, it gets mentioned often), but it the time between with Roddenberry’s ego getting pumped and him attending Q&A sessions where he’d just make shit up about the world building. By the time TNG came around he had all these half baked utopian ideas going around his drug addled brain and was given wayyyy too much creative control at the start of tng and took things too far in many places like arguing that a child wouldn’t morn his dead parents cause they were too enlightened for that now. After he died things got rolled back by about a third to a semi reasonable but poorly thought out utopia.
As a big retro Dungeons and Dragons fan, I’ve grown really tired over the years of the “Anything that even remotely resembles a ‘Colonial Trope’ is bad” arguments.